


The anchor that you can’t leave behind

by lanyon



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Childbirth, F/M, Miscarriage, Widowed, implied alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 23:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1835818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’ll have a boy,” she whispers, at night, when it’s as dark as it ever is in this corner of Brooklyn; when it’s quiet as it can be while Mags O’Toole is screaming at her husband for being a drunk and a wastrel. “We’ll have a boy, to play with Winifred’s baby, and he’ll be strong and he’ll take after his da.”</p><p>Joseph’s arm tightens around her middle and her heart races over the way he’s still awake. “He’ll take after his ma if he knows what’s good for him.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The anchor that you can’t leave behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [legete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/legete/gifts).



> For **legete**. This is not the changeling fic that I promised you but hopefully it'll tide you over till that gets finished.  <3
> 
>  In which I continue to work through my WIP list.
> 
> Title from Vienna Teng's _Oh Mama No_.
> 
>  **WARNINGS** for miscarriage, fears of infertility, childbirth and the canonical death of a canon character, as well as implied alcoholism.

“Name?”

“Seosamh Mac Ruaidhrí.”

“Seo-That’s Joseph, right? First name: Joseph. Mac- What’s that?”

“Mac Ruaidhrí,” says Seosamh. 

“Kinda name is that-? Goddamned Irish.”

Seosamh huffs a little but Sorcha nudges his arm. 

“Rogers,” he says. “Rogers’ll do.”

It won’t do and he knows it and Sorcha knows it but they know when to fight their battles, too. It was a battle to scrape together the money to get the boat fare.

“And you-?” asks the official.

“Sorcha Uí Ru-.” She stops and lifts her chin. She thinks about what her mam would say. _Stand up, straight, Sorcha. What **have** you done with your hair? Were you dragged through a hedge backwards, were you?_ “Sarah Rogers, sir.”

“You pregnant?” he asks, staring at her belly. She curves her hand around it, protectively. It’s not that big, yet, but everything is swollen; her legs and her hands (and Seo- Joseph would kiss her fingers protectively on the crossing; _ispíní beaga_ , he’d say, laughing).

“Yes, sir.”

“Goddamned Irish,” he says like it’s far from the banks of the Liffey he himself was born. 

Joe bristles beside her but they’ll laugh about it later, when Joe will mimic the official’s voice. “Fucking Dubliners,” he’ll say, and they’ll toast to their bright future with hot tea and hope.

.

Their apartment is homely. It’s homely after Sarah’s made some net curtains and when she buys little posies to put in a cracked teacup. They’re the last of the florist’s stock at the end of a hot summer and maybe it’s extravagant but Joe’s making decent money at the docks.

They have neighbours, at closer quarters than they’d be used to back in Kildare, and most are Irish.

“You’re having a girl, you know,” says Mrs Crowley from downstairs. “You can always tell. They spread more.” She eyes Sarah critically. “You’re carrying a fair few extra pounds, I’d say.”

Sarah bites her tongue and says nothing about how her mam’s a midwife and she’s heard every old wives’ tale going. 

She remembers peeling apples with her grandma, working hard to keep the peel in one piece so it would spell the first initial of the man she’d marry. Funny that she can never remember what letters she got.

She couldn’t be peeling apples now. She says nothing, not to Joe (he wears his new name well) and not to Mrs Crowley, about how she still feels sick, most mornings, and she can barely move her fingers in the evenings.

.

Most of their neighbours are Irish but there are a few, like Winifred Barnes, who are properly American, the way Sarah’s child will be. Winifred’s husband is Irish, though, by way of Indiana. 

“His parents came when he was a babe in arms,” says Winifred, pausing to tighten the scarf around her head. She’s a hard worker, and younger than her husband, and she’s one of the few who looks at Sarah with delight and not envy, that there’s a seed inside, taking root. “The official couldn’t understand a _word_ George’s father was saying - they were from Donegal, you know - and when he asked what he did for a living, all he could hear was _building barns_ and -” Winifred shrugs. “So the Barnes family was born.” 

Sarah laughs and when George, who’s rakish and handsome, comes to collect Winifred, she says, “ _Dia dhuit, a Sheoirse_.”

He smiles, his face lighting up. “ _Dia’s Muire dhuit_ ,” he says, and his accent is strange, layered over with American, and that is the way Sarah’s child will be.

.

Sarah loses the child. She is not surprised and she is not graceful. Winifred comes to her bedside, after, and mops her brow and says that she is so sorry and she is one of the few Sarah believes. 

“I thought it would be a boy,” says Sarah, looking out the window at grey brick and grey clouds. “We’d have named him for Joe’s father, Maitiú.” She swallows. “She was a girl, though.”

She was a girl, and small. 

“What was her name?” asks Winifred. She is the only one who asks; Sarah’s little girl is buried outside a cemetery but Sarah cannot believe that any child of hers is ill-deserving of Heaven’s graces. 

“Saoirse,” says Sarah and she smiles. “It means _freedom_.” It means the thing that all Irishmen and women crave.

Mrs O’Sullivan from the priest’s house says that there is no shame to be had, though the priest might not agree. There is no blame. Sure, how could a baby know how to grow after making that crossing? How could she know where to be born?

.

It is 1916 and there is a war on; there is a war in Europe and there is a War in Ireland and, like every Irish rebellion, it falters. 

“They don’t want for heart,” murmurs Joe, peering at a letter from his brother, Séamus. “But they want for brains, make no mistake.” He throws the letter onto the table and stands up. 

He reaches for Sarah and her heart breaks for wanting him, and that he wants her in return near makes her heart explode. 

There is no music, but they dance anyway, like they did six years ago and they were only teenagers, without a lick of sense.

.

It is 1916 and Winifred comes to her in April and she is glowing.

“You’re expecting,” says Sarah. 

Winifred’s face falls. “How did you know? Did George tell you? That little-”

“You have the look of it,” says Sarah. She smiles. “My ma could always tell, too. Sure, it’s in the way you glow.”

. 

It is 1916 and Sarah is working as a nurse. She was put to work by the local doctor when she helped at the birth of her neighbour’s child. Lizzie Murphy’s no more than a child herself and Doctor Edwards as impressed that Sarah didn’t flinch at the sight of blood. 

_Have you never met a woman?_ Sarah does not ask. _Barren or not, we all bleed_.

She accompanies him on his rounds and when he enlists to fight in the war, he puts in a good word for her at the local hospital. 

Joseph still dances with her in the evenings and when she tells him that Winifred is pregnant, he does not seem too sad. 

“My darling girl,” he says. “Sure, you’re saving lives.”

“My yellow-haired girl,” he says, though her hair is no more yellow than it is blue. 

His breath sometimes smells sweet and his hands sometimes tremble and sometimes he misses a bit when he shaves in the mornings but he still looks at her like she hung the moon and strung out the stars. 

“We’ll have a boy,” she whispers, at night, when it’s as dark as it ever is in this corner of Brooklyn; when it’s quiet as it can be while Mags O’Toole is screaming at her husband for being a drunk and a wastrel. “We’ll have a boy, to play with Winifred’s baby, and he’ll be strong and he’ll take after his da.”

Joseph’s arm tightens around her middle and her heart races over the way he’s still awake. “He’ll take after his ma if he knows what’s good for him.”

.

In October, Winifred Barnes has a bouncing baby boy. His name is James Buchanan, for a president or some such, and he has a set of lungs that would put opera singers to shame. 

“He’s beautiful,” says Sarah, and she gives Winifred a christening dress, of white silk and lace that Sarah’s ma made years ago. 

“Sarah,” says Winifred. “I can’t. It’s too much.”

“We’ll call it a loan, then, and you can give it back whenever Joe and I are blessed.”

“They’ll be great friends,” says Winifred. “Though if you have a girl, Joe and George will marry them off before they can talk.”

.

“I’ll sign up,” says Joe. Work is hard to come by and there’s talk the Army’ll send immigrants to the front, especially if they speak English.

“They may not take you,” says Sarah and she’s afraid. “Or they may and then where will I be?”

“You’ll be my yellow-haired girl, Sorcha, keeping the fire in for me.”

.

In 1917, there is conscription. Little Jimmy Barnes turns one year old and, at the end of the year, Joe is wearing an Army uniform. 

“Quite the handsome man,” says Sarah, softly, straightening his collar, though it doesn’t need straightening. She rests her palms over his collarbones. His jaw is strong and he is clean shaven. His black hair is cropped short. “Don’t do anything stupid, Joe.”

“How can I?” he asks. “When my sweet girl is keeping the fire in for me?”

She stands on tip-toes to kiss him and she wonders whether to tell him her secret. 

.

Joseph Rogers and George Barnes go to war on St Stephen’s Day in 1917. 

Joseph Rogers doesn’t come home.

Sarah is pregnant and when the news arrives that the 107th was ambushed, the baby stirs.

Little Jimmy Barnes, who’s eighteen months old and has no reason not to laugh and smile, touches the tear tracks on her face, and pats her belly and gurgles supportively, while Winifred holds Sarah’s hand at the corpseless wake.

On the fourth of July 1918, she gives birth to a boy. She thinks of calling him Joseph but Steven is a reward and Steven is a crown, like the pale yellow whisps of hair, clinging to his head. The midwives speak in hushed tones and shake their heads. 

“He’s not long for this world,” says one of them and Sarah marvels at how wrong she is.

He is beautiful. He is all bones and a little pot-belly and his cries are weak but his grip on her finger is strong. 

“That’s it, _a leanbh_ ,” she whispers. “Hold on, _mo chroí_. We’ll have the right of it, you’ll see.”


End file.
